One Of My Best Observing Sessions...

Here are my six sketches from the night/morning of May 20/21, of M64, M63, The Box (Hickson 61), The now dimming Supernova 2011by, M12, and M57.____________M64 displayed a bright core, along with what appeared to be while using averted vision brighter marks/lines/lanes. The dust lane that gives this object it's name (balckeye galaxy) was clearly visible, yet didn't have as much of a contrast against the sorrounding galaxy as I thought it would have.

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M63 Showed quite a bit of mottled brightness, along with a few other bits of detail which I indicated in my sketch. The nucleus was extremely bright as compared to the sorrounding galaxy, which itself was easily seen without averted vision as well. It almost appeared as a "star", or a point of light. Overall, very significant.

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The "box" (Hickson 61) was a target towards the top of my list. I didn't know, however, just how much I would see. I didn't expect to see all four members, but, in reality it was more difficult to find the correct field using star charts & my Intelliscope system, than seeing the galaxies themselves! They were all clearly seen however, two without averted vision, and the others with very little.

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The current Supernova 2011by was the first obeject I saw. It had clearly dimmed since the last time I saw it, but seeing was also much better this time around, so the host galaxy (NGC 3972) was also very easily seen.

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M12 was the night's most difficult object by far. It's really hard to get a sketch to look right while sketching a globular. I'm still working on a way to accurately depict them as best as possible on paper, and I'm still practicing. Anyhow, it had a very distinct shape, and a brighter & mottled core, with the entire area "sprinkled" with faint resolved stars.

Attached Files

And finally, M57, the ring nebula or donut nebula. This was the highlight of the night. Under 200X, I easily saw structure I had never thought I could see in my telescope under any conditions! It also had a soft blue-green color. Unfortunately, I saw that clouds were coming to ruin all the fun, so I took all the time I had to see structure in the ring and depict it as accurately as possible on paper, while visrtually ignoring the star field. I'll be sure to go back and fill in the stars later.

I also cropped the view a little bit. I haven't looked into determining the size of the FOV that I sketched it in, but I decided to zoom-in a little bit so it'd be easier to depict detail that I culdn't if it was smaller.

Regarding the M12 (if you don't mind some constructive critisism ) - I think you should try to make the core a little bit less staturated, or make it fade out more smoothly. And maybe add a little bit more stars. Anyway globulars are really tough to sketch, I expirienced it during my last observations,spending two hours on one

Thanks guys I really enjoyed this session. It was amazing, just how transparent the sky was, with the seeing being just a bit unsteady however. A view of Saturn early in the night as the sun was still setting proved a somewhat unsteady image.

A galaxy cluster I looked at after the "Box", AGC 1656, was also spectacular in my 'scope. I now wish I had've sketched it, and the next time I get a peek at it I will. I saw maybe 25 galaxies in a 1/2 degree TFOV, as little smudges all over the place. As I boosted the power to 200X, the compact little groups like NGC 4873, NGC 4974, NGC 4871, NGC 4872, and IC 3998 were resolved as hazed areas with brighter knots.

M12 was the night's most difficult object by far. It's really hard to get a sketch to look right while sketching a globular. I'm still working on a way to accurately depict them as best as possible on paper, and I'm still practicing. Anyhow, it had a very distinct shape, and a brighter & mottled core, with the entire area "sprinkled" with faint resolved stars.